Dell for the past few years has been delivering quite decent laptops, as opposed to other large companies HP, which have been producing tear-inducing, low-performance machines. The Dell Inspiron 6400 is one of these low-profile laptops from Dell that continue to deliver even if not much hype has been stirred before their debut.

Specifications

Dell Inspiron 6400 comes with a solidly packed Genuine Intel T2080 running at 1.73 gigahertz. This processor is already Dual Core and thus employs the “virtual pc” technology that Intel has been advertising. The “virtual pc” technology works this way- often, computers are devastated by one or two problems, such as faulty programs or virus attacks. The “virtual pc” technology minimizes the effects.

The effects are minimized through the creation of “virtual pc’s”, which the operating system can discard at will if something goes wrong. The Dual Core technology also allows increased productivity by increasing the flow of data from one part of the processor to another, thereby increasing the over-all efficiency of the machine.

More recent Dell releases are running on more than 3 gigabytes of random access memory or RAM. The Dell Inspiron 6400 runs on something less impressive, with an ordinary 1.01 gigabytes. Nonetheless, it is sufficient to run many of the day-to-day applications of the average user.

This laptop wasn’t designed for gaming, if we were to look at the graphics card that was installed in it. Intel isn’t really known for good video cards, but anyway, Dell Inspiron 6400 runs on Intel GMA 950, which can be expanded to about 128 megabytes.

In any case, you can have plenty of fun with DVD/RW drive (slot-loading). Make your backup discs and test if these work with your Windows Vista, as Vista is sometimes known not to recognize its own emergency or backup discs.

For those who plan to do a lot of word processing and spreadsheet work on the Dell Inspiron 6400, you would be glad to know that this one was installed with a 15 inch liquid crystal display, which would definitely suit those who would be using this laptop for work or study. Windows Vista Home Edition comes pre-installed, and you can definitely upgrade this to any available service pack to improve security and performance.

Performance

Windows Vista Premium would run as efficiently, and should be viewed as a better choice since that version of the operating system comes with the Windows Media Center and handles more smoothly; not that this one doesn’t.

As for multimedia entertainment, watching DVDs doesn’t seem to go well with the Intel graphics card; however, if you have electronic copies of the videos, then these would run perfectly on your usual cross-platform video or multimedia player. This problem seems to be connected with the DVD/RW and the graphics card; physical upgrades seem logical to remedy this problem.

Aside from these minor problems, there seems to be little else to say negatively about the Dell Inspiron 6400. Even the keyboard is ergonomic, which can be appreciated by experts and novices alike. Reliability-wise, this one doesn’t freeze and doesn’t fail to boot either.